WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION
COMMISSION FOR INSTRUMENTS AND
METHODS OF OBSERVATION
CIMO/ SPICE-IOC-4/Doc 3(8).
(15.VI.2013)
Original: ENGLISH
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE (IOC) FOR THE
WMO SOLID PRECIPITATION INTERCOMPARISON
EXPERIMENT (SPICE)
Fourth Session
Davos, Switzerland
17 – 21 June 2013
SITE REPORT FOR VOLJSKAYA
(RUSSIAN FEDERATION)
(Submitted by Arkadi Koldaev)
Summary and purpose of document
This document provides Voljskaya site report (Russian Federation) for the
winter 2012/2013
ACTION PROPOSED
The Meeting is invited to take this information into consideration when
deciding on necessary modifications and clarifications on the overall set-up of the
experiment.
Voljskaya site report
1. Site layout
General topography plane of Voljskaya Hydro-Meteo Observatory
Bright solid line is the line of installation of the experimental instruments. Two circles- Tretiakov
double fance R0.
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SPICE Site Report, June 17, 2013
Common view of experimental site for winter 2012-2013. Automatic snow depth sensor “Nast” is
on the front place. Tretyakov with winnd shield is on the right and at the rear. Snow depth at the
time of photo is about 700mm
2. Configuration of references:
Covering: gauge used, heating (hardware, algorithm), sampling strategy, physical configuration
(height, shields, etc):
Reference Gauge
Heating Shield
Data
Sampling Output Height
type
sampling strategy interval of the
interval
rim
R0
Tretykov
n/a
Tretyakov wind 1/24 hrs
Manual, 1/24 hrs 2 m
gauges
shield
volume
3 Snow
depth
gauges
Snow
dencity
guage
3
n/a
n/a
1/24
n/a
n/a
1/10 days- Manual, 1/10days n/a
1/5days
weighing 1/5days
SPICE Site Report, June 17, 2013
manual
1/24
2m
3. Changes made during the season 12/13, if any.
No changes performed with R0. R1, R2 and R3 were not installed.
4. Issues: heating, data quality, vibrations, capping;
It was no heating for manual devices. Data quality for manual devices were double checked (at
the observatory and in headquarter of Volga river hydrometeorology department).Vibration of
the laser snow depth sensor during strong wind led to losses in the data set. Capping is not
applicable for manual devices. Capping was observed on the laser snow depth sensor, but it
does not impact anyhow.
5. Heating report:
Heating were not used for manual instruments. Internal heating of the laser snow
depth sensor allows keeping instrument operating up to -30C and keep clean all
optical parts. It does not prevent capping, but as it was mentioned above no any
visible effect on the data quality were observed.
6. What has worked well;
No problems with manual instruments.
7. What has not worked that well: lessons learned;
Time to time was observed malfunctions of the laser snow depth sensor. It was found that the
problem is with the regular electric power net. The problem was rejected just after a specially
organized very careful grounding as at the power supply site as at the site of sensor.
Strong wind, which were observed two times during the season, led to the reduction of the
automatic snow depth data set, which means that the data are collected not every 10 minute,
but twice per hour, or so.
8. Data available:
Data available for period from 1 DEC 2012 to 1 APR 2013.
9. Instruments under test: list, issues
As the construction works were not finished before first snow fall, only one experimental
instrument were installed for winter season 2012-2013. It is automatic remote snow depth
sensor ”Nast” operating on base of the small semiconductor laser.
10.
Information on the Precipitation Detector(s) used;
Snow depth sensor “Nast” has very sensitive output, and even 1mm of fresh snow can be
detected. So, this instrument, were used as the snow precipitation detector also.
11.
Commissioning:
The construction works has to be finished to August 2013. One Geonor and one MPS were
delivered yet to the site and will be installed in August – September 2013. Pluvio200 is agreed for
renting from Russian representative of OTT and will be installed in September. Fiber optics Internet
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SPICE Site Report, June 17, 2013
was provided yet on site. As the data from all above listed instruments will be collected on one joint
data logger (was delivered on site yet), the data transfer will be available in real time by remote
access to our site computer ftp.
12.
Results to date:
3 out of 4 testing instruments are on site, data logger and fast Internet are on site. Construction
works must be finished soon due to administrative impact from Roshydromet. Principal
agreement regarding Pluvio200 renting was achieved. ---
13.
Interaction Site manager and the IOC and Project team
Via e-mail only. The technical problems with software in our institute not allow me to take part
in the teleconference, provided by SPICE community.
14.
Small things, big impacts?
Quality of regular power net on the acting meteorological sites of Roshydromet is under big
question. As most of them are located at the country side, the quality of electricity is very pure. To
avoid any electrical interference, caused by the splashes of voltage or even loses of power during
snow falls because of trouble on the open air electric lines, we propose to use
-UPS with big capacity,
- gasoline electric engine as spare
- and very careful grounding at all possible sites of electric lines.
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SPICE Site Report, June 17, 2013